let me just share... and a spoiler!

with you for a moment how unreal my life occassionally seems. I suppose that sounds silly. and it is. a bit.

Years ago, i wanted desperately to make a living as a musician. I went to college, i practiced, i worked at music. i tried very hard. somewhere around my first marriage i made contact with a guy who said he knew a guy that might be interested in my music. My (now ex) husband threw a tantrum (insecurities suck) and i passed up the chance... and had a baby instead. it was hard, it made me resent my (now ex) husband, whom was already a problem because he was abusive.

i finally left when my (now ex) husband quit the last in a long trail of jobs and we got an eviction notice. i came home to South Dakota. wrecked. Eventually i went back to college, back to music. I still had dreams. But i was older and had two little babies at home, so my dreams were a bit smaller. I wanted to teach and spend my summers traveling to arts festivals selling my CDs (not made yet) of celtic music. I met my now husband while in college, but he was going to law school and told me he wasn't going to get married until law school was done. so i ran off to Alaska for a year. I'd always wanted to go and i taught in Unalakleet for a year. Fabulous. Then my now husband decided it was pretty lonely on his own and said he didn't want to wait afterall. I came home. we got married. i taught another two years. i had Brenden. i made a CD. I loved it.

I started traveling. Gigs were hard to come by, and money was slow going at the beginning of his law career, but i got paid enough to afford to go. MOSTLY. But i was barely breaking even.

All this time, i'd learned to spin and was spinning little bits and bobs of yarn. they sat around in baskets in my house. I didn't knit. Crocheting hurt my hands (i had the beginnings of arthritis even then) and spinning was just a hobby. I was going to make my job playing music.

I did a couple more things to help me make a living as a musician... and none of them really seemed to make it possible to even make it a reasonable second income. I made a second CD. I traveled. I got lots of good reviews. everyone said i should be able to make it. BUT, i could not.

Then, while i was away on a weekend gig, i was sitting around spinning and someone bought a bunch of handspun yarn. I made almost as much selling a little bit of handspun as i had made playing a bunch of times in a weekend.

And a new career was born... the thing that i thought was a career, has turned into a hobby. and the thing that was strictly a hobby... is now a career. And i'm happier now, than i was when i was a musician. isn't life odd?

Pictures of yesterday in my life!

Dyeing scab yarn and Forest Primeval!


progress on the pride and prejudice sock!